For some weird reason I can't access it, it just redirects me to this image about hacker news. Did he just configure his webserver to just universally display that image? Even if I manually enter the address into my address bar it does that so I assume that that's what he did...

The page sets a cookie when you visit it from hackernews and will redirect you to the image until you delete the cookie.

The author of xscreensaver holds hn in a certain amount of contempt, yes. Just go with it.